Most people overestimate how much they can progress in 12 weeks and underestimate how much they can improve in 12 months.

Our minimum signup for our online coaching pathways is 12 weeks.

Why is it 12 weeks?

Because that’s typically how long it takes to make some tangible and measurable progress towards your physical goals.

The first 4 weeks is where motivation is highest.

You’ve just decided to take the plunge and invest in your future success.

This action comes with a commitment to change and an abundance of energy that’s difficult to replicate at any other stage of the process.

You consciously make the decision to change for the better and it’s our job to help you to fit your new habits and behaviours into your life seamlessly.

Nonetheless there is an acceptance from the client that something significant is going to have to change.

So, if sessions go on a little longer than usual and the actions necessary to achieve positive change take up a lot of space in their lives, then they’re generally absolutely ok with that.

However, after that honeymoon period of the first 4 weeks, this is when motivation often begins to waver.

It’s too early in the process to see monumental changes to your physical capacity and the energy that came with the beginning of the process has now dissipated.

Often athletes now, unbeknownst to themselves, begin to regress back to their previous behaviours and habits.

This is the make or break period for the momentum of the next phase.

Our job here is to show the athlete that they are making progress, make their habits automatic, make the more beneficial choice the easy one and facilitate continual improvement through tonnes of positive reinforcement.

Now is the time to focus on process over outcome.

As sticking to the process now is what’s really going to make long-term success more likely.

If we can keep momentum building and integrate these new habits and behaviours into the athletes’ lives seamlessly, then success isn’t only likely but also very realistic.

However, it is at this stage that the athletes often realise that the changes to their body and movement capacity are not likely to happen overnight.

It is this stage of the process where they realise that making these necessary changes to their lifestyle and habits are going to take A LOT of work!

And it is at this stage that frustration and lethargy can set in.

If we can steer the course during this phase then it’s absolutely possible that we can transition through weeks 5-8 successfully.

This means that we have the opportunity to move through the phases of general and specific physical preparation.

It is in these two phases where we often push the athletes to their absolute limits.

We stress the body to adapt with intensive training loads.

Residual fatigue and mental fatigue can be abnormally high as a result.

But only after having navigated through these phases can we hope to move towards the following phases in better shape than we were at the beginning of the process.

This is where we can go after specific physical qualities more intensively.

We’re back sprinting, changing direction and replicating the actions of the sport at high volumes.

This is our specific developmental phase.

And it challenges the athlete in a different way.

They now feel as though they COULD go back playing.

However, our goal here is to hold then back for a little while longer.

We hold them back, so that when they return to the field, they’re a better athlete and player than when they suffered injury.

They’re sprinting faster, decelerating more efficiently, covering more ground and executing at a higher level than ever before.

This realisation phase only comes after a minor taper though.

We back off in our loading in order to allow any fatigue to dissipate and give the athlete the opportunity to recover from the volume of work that we’ve helped to guide them through.

At this phase, the athlete will hopefully be able to return to the pitch and better tolerate the demands of their sport, as well as compete at a much higher level for their team.

And that’s where a lot of athletes stop.

But that doesn’t have to be and shouldn’t be the end in my opinion.

There’s still a lot of money left on the table in relation to the athlete’s physical development.

If we can improve the athlete by 10-15% in 12 weeks, then that’s great.

But what could we achieve if we ran through this same cycle 4x in 12 months?

Imagine what would happen if we could improve by 10% 4x in a year.

Whether it’s in relation to speed, strength, conditioning or movement efficiency, it’s pretty clear to see that if the athlete committed to giving their all over a longer time period, then the gains that they could achieve would be exponentially greater than in a shorter timeframe.

Improve by just 10-15% every 12 weeks, and over a year you’re not 40-60% better, you’re closer to 50–75% better off.

Small gains, compounded consistently, don’t add up. They multiply.

So don’t settle for a minor improvement over the course of a shorter time period.

Commit to long-term change, give it your best and within a year’s time you could be almost twice the athlete that you are right now.

Good things take time.

Great things require it.

Make the commitment.

Stick to process.

Be patient.

And that’s how success becomes inevitable.